...and You Lose an Arm

The next two weeks blurred into a rhythm. Wake. Eat. Cycle. Fail. Repeat.

Morning after morning, Eric sat in Seltherin’s chamber while the elf’s voice ticked like a clock: “Draw. Hold. Release.” Hours of cycling until his chest burned. Then came symbols—sharp little sounds that were supposed to mean something, but to Eric they rang like nonsense syllables, homework recited into the void.

Meals were noise; sleep arrived like a stone.

Eric arrived grinning, gamer-logic primed. Ten minutes later he was cross-legged on cold stone, lungs burning while Seltherin corrected the angle of his shoulders by the width of a fingernail.

“Arc,” Eric said, shaping the lightning symbol the way he’d been shown.

Nothing happened.

He tried again. And again. His throat rasped, his fingers cramped, his chest buzzed with effort—still nothing.

“Maybe the mana’s lagging,” he muttered.

“It is not the mana that lags,” Seltherin said without looking up.

By nightfall, Eric had precisely zero spells, a splitting headache, and the unearned certainty that Day Two would fix everything.

By the fifth morning, certainty had evaporated. His voice was raw, his fingers cramped from tracing lines on slate, and the best he’d managed all week was a puff of warmth that barely moved his hair.

He slumped against the wall. “This was supposed to be easy. Input the combo, boom—cool lightning hero. Instead it’s homework that explodes in your face, except mine doesn’t even explode.”

Seltherin’s expression didn’t soften. “You expected mastery in days. Real mages labor for years before producing more than sparks.”

“Yeah, well,” Eric grumbled, “the heavens saw ‘potential,’ right? A little tutorial pop-up would’ve been nice.”

Seltherin’s lips thinned—but he didn’t argue.

That afternoon the routine changed.

The artificer’s workshop smelled of chalk dust, copper, and something like burned leather. Runes webbed across slates and plates, tidy as music. The professor who waited there had ink on his fingers and the kind of steady patience that meant he’d seen every way a pupil could be stupid.

“I am Professor Valien,” he said. The sleeve where his right arm should have been was neatly pinned. He tapped a practice plate with chalk. “Artificing is concept to concept. A rune alone is intent. Runes in sequence are command. You do not mix unrelated concepts. You do not force a path that cannot bear it. Do it wrong”—a brief, humorless glance at his empty sleeve—“and you lose an arm. These plates are fail-safed to vent, so they will not explode violently.”

Eric nodded too quickly. “Great. Love that for me.”

Valien slid a plate across the table. “Begin. Trickle mana along the lines until the array stabilizes.”

Eric set his palm over the chalked spiral and let the smallest stream he could manage slide out.

The plate went WHUMP—a bright flash, a chalky bang, shards skittering across the bench like thrown ice.

Eric staggered back. “You said it wouldn’t—!”

“It should not have,” Valien said, eyebrows inching up. He studied the scorched remains. “You overloaded it. By a lot.”

“I trickled!”

“If that was a trickle, boy, then a river flood is morning dew.” He slid another plate forward. “Again. A trickle.”

Eric pinched down so hard the effort made his fingertips go numb.

CRACK. The lines blackened. The plate died.

“Again.”

Pop. Smoke, a little blue flare.

“Again.”

Whuff. A harmless gout of heat and a hiss that curled Eric’s hair.

By the eighth casualty Valien was pinching the bridge of his nose. By the tenth, Seltherin (watching from the doorway with arms folded) finally spoke, tone deceptively mild.

“Do you remember when I made such a fuss about your claiming artificer?”

Eric coughed through the chalk haze. “You mean the part where you predicted I’d die? Vividly.”

“It was not exaggeration,” Seltherin said.

Valien cleared his throat. “You are not pushing mana. You are drowning the rune. Artificing is not about strength. It is about measure.” He glanced at the depleted stack, then at the hourglass. “And you have five minutes left and no plates.”

Eric stared at the ruin field he’d created. “Sooo… I can’t even get this right.”

“You will return tomorrow,” Valien said dryly, “and I will bring a lot more plates.”

Eric lifted a hand, chalk-streaked and sheepish. “I’ll bring a broom.”

The grind resumed.

On the sixth day, the artificer’s workshop smelled like scorched chalk and failure. Eric had incinerated so many plates that Valien had stopped sighing and started bringing them by the basket.

“Trickle,” Valien ordered.

“I am trickling!” Eric snapped, sweat stinging his eyes. He pushed again, trying to bleed the mana thinner than air. The rune lines flared—then cracked, the plate splitting with a sharp whuff.

Eric dropped his head into his hands. “This is hopeless. I don’t even know if I’m getting better, or if the system’s gonna take pity on me—”

A shimmer blinked at the edge of his vision:

New Skill Acquired: Mana Manipulation — Rank 1

Eric squinted at the glowing words, then snorted. “Hah. The system threw me a bone. Gave me something actually helpful for once.”

Both professors looked at him sharply.

Seltherin’s voice cut in from the doorway. “The Heavens does not throw bones. It does not pity. If it has given you a skill, it is because you earned it.”

Eric hesitated, rubbing the back of his neck. “You mean… all this exploding chalk?”

Valien brushed shards off the bench. “Messy progress. But progress nonetheless.”

Eric leaned back, half-relieved, half-skeptical. “Guess I’ll take it. Tutorial by demolition.”

On day seven he stopped trying to bully the sound and remembered how lightning felt: the sting on his tongue, the hair-lift, the breath before the sky split. The symbol resonated. A weak, honest crackle danced across his palm.

A shimmer blinked in the corner of Eric’s vision:

New Spell Learned: Arc (Lightning) — Rank 1

He whooped loud enough to echo off the chamber walls. Tiny sparks snapped across his palm like static off a doorknob.

Seltherin arched an eyebrow, unimpressed. “That is your mighty spell? A toy spark?”

Eric grinned anyway. “Toy spark? Excuse me, that’s called a hand buzzer. Classic prank. Humans have been terrifying each other with these since—well, forever.”

Seltherin’s frown deepened. “I do not know what that means.”

Eric just held up his fizzing hand, smug. “Means I finally got magic. And I’ll take it.”

On the tenth day Eric’s mana manipulation was rank 17 and still no luck. Valien pushed a fresh plate across the bench. “Again.”

Eric exhaled, felt the path this time—how the lines pulled, how the corners resisted. He didn’t pour; he pulsed. Thread-thin. Rhythm, not force.

The array woke with a soft blue glow.

Eric blinked. “Wait… is that—”

“It lit,” Valien confirmed. “A lamp. Nothing more.”

Eric beamed anyway. “Edison, eat your heart out.”

Valien’s mouth didn’t move, but something like approval flickered in his eyes. “Try not to set the city on fire with your… lamp.”

By the final day Eric had actually learned a lot.

Mana Manipulation climbed all the way to 39. He wasn’t killing plates anymore; the arrays glowed like they were supposed to. For once, progress.

And the spells—finally, spells.

1. Gust: a sharp shove of air that knocked books off shelves and papers across desks.
2. Ignite: a fingertip spark that lit candles instantly.
3. Lightning Strike: the one he really cared about—a ranged snap of power that hit like a thrown spear of storm.

Arc crawled up to Rank 3, but once Lightning Strike arrived, Eric barely looked at it again. Sure, it was useful up close, but he had no plans on letting anyone get that close. Strike, on the other hand, was already Rank 3 and climbing. Gust and Ignite remained at Rank 1, but they were tools; Strike was a weapon.

Seltherin even admitted as much, one brow arched in something dangerously close to pride. “For one who stumbled so much in the beginning, you have proven a quick study.”

Eric tried not to grin too wide at that, but he couldn’t help it.

Seltherin studied him in silence, trepidation flickering behind the usual calm. It was the first time Eric had seen the elf look almost… uneasy.

“Uh,” Eric said, rubbing the back of his neck, “you okay?”

“Yes.” Seltherin folded his hands, voice steady but lower than usual. “There is one last matter to cover before your classes begin. A history lesson. One I believe”—his gaze lingered on Eric’s face—“you are finally ready for.”

Seltherin’s eyes lingered on him, grave and searching. Eric kept still, sensing the shift, and for once held his tongue. When he didn’t speak, Seltherin gave a single nod, as though granting permission to silence.

“A thousand years ago,” Seltherin began, voice low and steady, “elves and humans were locked in war. And in that war, both sides embraced a most deplorable practice. We summoned sentient beings and bound them, enslaving their will in pursuit of advantage.” His lips thinned. “It was a crime that belonged to us both. And it nearly destroyed your kind entirely.”

Eric’s chest tightened, but he said nothing.

“The human empire summoned one such man. His name was Keith. Like you, he was taken from a world without mana. And like you, he spoke of science. They tortured him. Broke him. Forced him to build weapons of destruction not born of mana, but of design and knowledge.” Seltherin’s expression darkened. “For years he obeyed. Until one day, he did not.”

The air between them seemed to still.

“No one knows exactly what he made,” Seltherin continued, “only that it was terrible beyond imagining. In a single act, he annihilated the human continent. The land still festers — rifts tear open at random, twisted beasts roam its wastes. Even the gods’ intervention could not heal it. Had they not acted, the world itself might have followed.”

Eric swallowed. “And the people?”

“Scattered,” Seltherin said. “The humans who survived became little more than animals in scattered settlements. Not out of anger, but out of shame. They have little, and they ask for nothing. And we…” He paused, his jaw tightening. “We have little tolerance for their presence. Not because we hate them, but because we remember.”

He fell silent then, eyes fixed on Eric’s, as though measuring how much weight the boy could carry.

Eric’s thoughts churned. Finally, he found his voice. “So that’s why I’m treated the way I am.”

Seltherin inclined his head. “Yes. Any sapient being pulled from another world is taken to the Arcane Anomaly Authority. Their task is to return such beings to where they belong. It is the only way to avoid repeating that dark past.”

He folded his hands behind his back, eyes narrowing slightly. “I have no doubt there are places in this world where the practice continues in secret. But if word of it reaches us, we act—immediately and decisively.”

Eric frowned. “And me? I couldn’t be sent back.”

Seltherin’s lips pressed thin. “You are… concerning. Not because you are at fault, but because you embody what we fear: the memory of what was done, and what it wrought. You are the living echo of a wound the world has not forgotten.”

Eric sat with the story for a long time, his thoughts heavy. He winced more than once—at Keith’s torture, at the breaking point that must have pushed him, at the cost paid by two peoples who should have known better.

Finally, Eric looked up. “We’re guilty of the same crime back home. Not with magic, but…” He shook his head. “In dark corners, people still try to force sentience into chains. At least it didn’t take a catastrophe like yours for us to recognize it as evil. But I understand—when a people commit something that dark, it scars generations.”

Seltherin inclined his head once, measured. “Then I am glad your world chose a wiser path before such destruction could take root.”

Eric gave a short, bitter laugh. “Something like that could never have happened on my world.” He trailed off, the words hollow even to himself.

Silence stretched, his mind chewing on the fragments of Keith’s story. What kind of weapon could scour a continent? Leave rifts tearing open for centuries? His eyes widened. The whisper slipped out before he realized it.

Eric sucked in a deep breath and whispered, “…A nuke.”

Seltherin’s head snapped toward him at the whisper, eyes narrowing. “You seem to understand what he did.” His voice was low, but the air in the chamber seemed to tighten around the words.

Eric froze, pulse thudding. He hadn’t meant to say it aloud. “I… might have an idea,” he said carefully.

Seltherin’s gaze didn’t waver, his eyes darkening with something between suspicion and dread. “Then speak, artificer. If you truly know, it is knowledge our world has feared for a thousand years.”

Eric exhaled, shoulders folding with the confession. “We used that… that same idea,” he said slowly. “On my world. It’s final. It leaves places dead. We call the controlled flow of it electricity — like lightning, only guided through wires and machines. We learned to wring power from it, yes, but we also learned how terrible it can be when turned into a weapon. Whole swathes of land became uninhabitable.” He let out a humorless laugh. “Now we use it for energy, for light and heat and machines. But god help me, I’ll never teach anyone how to make a weapon from it.”

Seltherin started, a ripple of motion across his features. For the first time in days the elf’s composure slipped; his eyes sharpened until they looked almost black. “You understand,” he said, each syllable a small blade. “You understand what Keith did.”

Eric’s mouth tightened. “I understand enough. Enough to know you shouldn’t have it. I’m not going to hint at methods, or designs, or anything that could give someone the means. Hell—” He flung his hands out, incredulous and fierce. “I shouldn’t even know that much. No one should. I’d rather die than give this world that information.”

Silence thudded between them. Seltherin moved as though to speak, then stopped, fingers curling against the sleeve of his robe. His voice when it came was quieter, older. “There are truths a people keeps from itself for its own safety,” he said. “Keith discovered a way to turn grief and rage into ruin. We buried the knowledge and tried to forget. When the sea of men remembers, they become dangerous to themselves and to us.” He looked at Eric with something like pity. “That you recognize the cost and refuse to teach it—that steadies me more than I expected.”

Eric let the relief wash over him in a single, exhausted exhale. “Good,” he said gruffly. “Because I wouldn’t know where to begin, and I sure as hell wouldn’t volunteer that knowledge.”

Outside, the city moved on, oblivious. Inside, two worlds’ mistakes sat quietly between teacher and student.